Inquiry not opinion

On surrendering to not knowing and preparing ourselves for what's next

Nov 15, 2024

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There are a million blogs/articles out there telling you why this happened and how we got here. This isn’t one of them.

I’m pretty sure the only thing we know is that we don’t know. Any pronouncements of certainty about who is right, who is to blame is a waste of energy much needed for the work ahead.

What we don’t need right now is more opinions. We need inquiry - deep, honest, critical, accountable, embodied inquiry. Inquiry doesn’t cling to old stories and structures. It demands new ground and reaches for new horizons. Inquiry is the doorway into what’s beyond and what’s possible. Here are some questions we are leaning into right now:

Where is my growing edge right now? What am I learning about myself and my relationship to the whole?
What can we learn from this moment that prevents us from repeating history?
How can I digest the grief and despair in real time?
How do we restore trust where there is rupture?
How do we build circles of protection and possibility?
What is needed for long-term engagement? How do we keep going together?

How is lack of imagination holding us back? How do we dream bigger?

Beware: everything will try to squash our imagination and stomp out our dreams. We must be relentless in reaching beyond the status quo, defying institutional normals, refusing someone else’s idea of freedom. We must forego the politics of rightness and embrace the party of imagination. Abolitionist author and organizer Mariame Kaba invites us to “begin our abolitionist journey not with the question, ‘What do we have now and how can we make it better?’” but instead with, “‘What can we imagine for ourselves and the world?’ If we do that, then boundless possibilities of a more just world await us.”

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

A Return to Leftist Self-Defense. Communities targeted by escalating right-wing violence are learning from their own histories how to keep each other safe.
Fascism cannot be overcome at the ballot box. A nice mixture of fear, the disempowering electoral system, and representation politics have helped the Republican Party amalgamate the liberal base into their policy positions
Defiance must be woven into the fabric of our daily lives, rather than simply proclaimed at marches or on social media. Kelly Hayes on collective survival, adaptation and direct action.
Trump’s Project 2025 is already underway in Argentina, and it’s terrifying
If you can bear to see how Trump would implement Project 2025, look to Argentina – a lab for the global far right. We know a little about what lies ahead…and we must get ready.
“If a 3-year-old can dream of cats building skyscrapers, dancing snowpeople, and melodies in the silence of aching grief, then surely, if we put our minds together, we can imagine — and build — a world without cages”. “An Imagination Party”: How My Toddler Fuels My Vision for Liberation

COLLECTIVE CARE

Organizing is how we take care of each other. And it starts where we are. What begins at the local level expands so that our efforts and resources aggregate for love and justice. We move on behalf of the whole (not the few) in collective action with social and political movements that advance our values and democratize wellbeing for all. This requires both organizing depth (in how we build trust/relationships and create culture) and scale (in how we engage the disengaged and bridge across movements). It is a holistic approach to organizing through personal practice, community building, and collective action as we transform ourselves and restructure our world to support the conditions of wellbeing for all.

Activist and author Shane Burley says “A strong community is what keeps people safe in times of crisis, and that can be as simple as a tight-nit, autonomous group of trusted friends who can be relied on as things get worse. This type of relationship is the centerpiece both of staying safe as state repression worsens, but also has the effect of creating a model for the types of relationships a new kind of society could be built on."

We come together from where ever we are. Pods were created by Mia Mingus and the Bay Area Transformative justice Collective. It is simply a group coming together to take care of each other, forming a link in a larger web of mutual support and resistance. And it can be activated for any number of things including mutual aid, direct action, sanctuary and protection, healing support, ritual, repair and accountability and more. Here’s a pod mapping workshop to get you started.

And join us NEXT WEDNESDAY for special community of practice that explores how we meet this moment and how we move into the next - together. November 20th, 6EST/3PST.

Art by @FaviannaRodriguez

Perhaps the most important thing we can do right now is get ready for what’s to come. That means educating ourselves about fascism, harvesting best practices from past movements, building our capacity for repair and solidarity, and dreaming into new possibilities and futures. Here are some favorites from our book list:

Let This Radicalize You: Organizing & Revolution for Reciprocal Care, Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba
Beautiful Solutions: A Toolbox for Liberation, Eli Feghali (Editor), Rachel Plattus (Editor), Nathan Schneider (Editor), Elandria Williams (Editor)
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder
On Freedom: Four Songs of Care & Constraint, Maggie Nelson
Loving Corrections, adrienne maree brown
The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon

SOUNDTRACK FOR SELF-REGULATION

A sweet playlist to accompany your resourcing and recovery into this next phase of our work. You can access HERE.

WE-NESS

Permission to go as slowly as you need to go.

Art by @maharose